Drawing on his own experiences, artist and naturalist Jim Arnosky offers the delight of wildlife watching to young children by showing a white-tailed doe and her twin fawns at the brook on a summer's day.

When a brook trout leaps near one fawn, its brilliant colors are reflected in the stream, which is already awash with color from the stream bed and reflections of the surrounding countryside.

Children looking at these pictures can learn many things about deer, such as the relationship of deer hooves to tracks. The animals exquisite faces are shown close-up. Because adult male deer are solitary by nature, Jim Arnosky features a buck coming to the brook alone. Its antlers are "in velvet"—the summer growth stage.

There are other discoveries to be made in these beautiful wildlife scenes. A green frog sits in the water; a wild iris grows nearby. The fish swimming on the title page is a blacknose dace. Two mayflies can be found near the singing wood thrush. As the deer family approaches the brook, a swallow flies overhead. A white admiral butterfly alights on the blackberry bush, and a damselfly hovers above the sparrow that is building a nest at the book's end.

From the dust jacket